Texas Entrepreneur NetworkTEN Funding Portal2016-12-08T18:28:21Zhttps://texasenetworks.com/feed/atom/WordPressTen Portalhttp://texasenetworks.comhttp://texasenetworks.com/?p=403122016-10-11T22:53:37Z2015-03-02T13:48:33ZChris Taylor grew up in Pinch, West Virginia. And yes, it’s as rural as is sounds. He attended Carnegie Mellon University, both because it had one of the top Computer Science programs in the country, and more importantly, it had a diverse student base with excellent schools for art, design and architecture as well.

That broad base of knowledge made him interesting to Trilogy, which recruited him down to Austin in 1995. When he finally left in 2005 he had 10 years of experience in enterprise software and a little money in the bank, the perfect time to start a company!

All he was lacking as the killer idea. By performing analytics and strategy projects with large customers, he as able try and test various ideas, finally coming up with CoEFFICIENT, performance engagement software for large enterprises, in 2009. Almost immediately knew that it was the big idea that he had set out to find four years earlier.

From Trilogy Chris adopted the paradigm that data is a tool that should be leveraged to make better business decisions every day. Square Root’s platform, CoEFFICIENT, analyzes large amounts of data to help retail organizations reduce operational complexity and find opportunities to maximize performance.

As he was building the software Chris was also building his company. He realized that “Company culture can make or break a startup. Think about what kind of culture you would like your company to have, then start building it immediately. By the time you’ve hit 10 people, it’s too late.”

Square Root is built around four core values; Thrive, Think Big, Do Bigger, Be Customer Inspired, and Partner. Says Chris, “Of the four, I think my favorite would have to be Thrive. It’s important to me that the team feel empowered to find the work-life balance that suits them best. We believe it is everyone’s responsibility to make their work environment motivating and fulfilling.”

“This takes communication from the C-level all the way down to our interns. Every Friday we get together for a company lunch, this alone has helped us build a strong report. We have announcements where everyone hears from the executives talk on the progress toward business, and one employee gives a presentation on something he or she is currently working on. It’s a great way to make sure everyone is on the same page about our goals as a company, and it makes for a strong team.” says Chris.

Chris says that his goal at Square Root is to have “a positive work environment where ideas can flourish. I want to be excited to come to work every day, I want that for everyone at Square Root.” One way Square Root encourages this is their office environment. Occupying three neighboring houses, and soon to be four, the offices at Square Root could be confused with someone’s home, except in place of couches and chairs there are stand-up desks.

To date Square Root has been completely bootstrapped. But that hasn’t slowed its growth. Finishing 2013 at 20 employees, it’s currently at 40 and plans to be at 70 by the end of 2015. Says Chris, “Bootstrapping a software company is not easy. I’m glad I had to work hard to get where I am today. My upbringing gave me the grounding to truly appreciate the ups and downs of being a CEO, genuinely value the team at Square Root, and be thankful to be raising my family in Austin.”

And Austin has infused the culture of Square Root. They hire UT graduates, sponsor HI-B Visas, and in the last year have tripled the training budget. Says Chris, “Right now Austin has the balance between being too laid back and having no life other than work. There is so much to look forward to at Square Root. We are doing something awesome and doing it with balance.”

]]>Ten Portalhttp://texasenetworks.comhttp://texasenetworks.com/?p=401822016-10-11T22:53:37Z2015-01-30T13:53:25ZBruce Ge was working at Siebel Systems when it was acquired at Oracle. A year after the acquisition he enjoyed the culture and benefits of Oracle but was bored by the work. He looked at his path ahead and decided to create his own fork in the road. So he quit Oracle and started his own company, one that would eventually become Jobs2Careers.

That willingness to change had already served Bruce well in his life so far. Growing up in China he attended the top engineering school in the nation, and then came to the United States to attend University of Illinois at Urbana, one of the top computer science graduate schools in the country.

At first Jobs2Careers was a social job referral program, a social network like LinkedIn. That iteration didn’t get the traction that was needed, but by building it Bruce gained a better understanding of the market. By 2010 Jobs2Careers changed and took shape as a one-stop job search engine.

Jobs2Careers now offers pay-per-application job search advertising. This, coupled with good integration with their customer’s job sites, bring peace of mind to employers when allocating dollars for talent acquisition.

Although outside financing would have helped Jobs2Careers accelerate their growth more rapidly, there were benefits to bootstrapping. Being a smaller organization enabled Bruce to move Jobs2Careers multiple times, finally making the transition from California to Austin.

It also enabled Bruce to focus on the culture of the company. “My job is to keep my employees happy. They want to change the world and I want to focus on supporting that drive.”

One way he is accomplishing that is by moving the company to a brand new office. With bright, sunny offices everyone gets a window. The conference rooms are named after cities where Jobs2Careers was once based, reinforcing their history of movement and growth.

The open office also enables employees to learn and coach from each other. This team collaboration is one of the core values of the company.

Jobs2Careers currently has 35 employees and is looking to double this by the end of 2015. In an ironic twist, even a fast growing job search company has to fight for top talent.

]]>Ten Portalhttp://texasenetworks.comhttp://www.texasenetworks.com/?p=398482016-10-11T22:53:37Z2014-10-29T12:37:04ZBen Lamm, the CEO and a founder of Chaotic Moon was born in Austin but grew up in Dallas. When heading off to college he wanted to stay in Texas and so chose Baylor University for their 30:1 student:teacher ration. “. I really got to know my professors and learned so much during my time there because hardly any of the courses were lecture-based. We solved actual problems for real businesses.” Says Ben. “It was a very “Shark Tank” kind of experience: less talking, more doing.”

After school, as founder of an interactive education software company, Simply Interactive, Ben noticed how mobile adoption was changing the way people interact with the content on their phones. Recognizing an opportunity, Ben partnered with the founders of iPhoneDev camp to start a business that applied education user experience models to a growing mobile audience. This company, Chaotic Moon, has since then moved beyond mobile into the internet of things space.

Ben says that the things that set Chaotic Moon apart aren’t “… any of the things that make us famous – incredible user experience and design, innovative product strategies, a team of engineers who can do things most shops never dreamed of – the real answer is our ability to say no to clients. When you can say no to bad work, difficult clients or partners with mediocre visions, you’re free to do things no other company can do.”

The ethos of Chaotic Moon can be summed up in its mantra “We’re The Best”. Says Ben, “We’re building the future. We’re not solving mid-level marketing problems, we’re finding the interesting opportunities that push not just our client’s businesses forward but the entire industry forward.”

The belief that they are the best enables Chaotic Moon to build a culture unlike any other company. As Ben explains, “When you know you can do anything, and the best brands in the world believe in you, you have a lot of fun doing it. We are a very aggressive, work hard, play hard culture.” And this belief enables Ben to recognize the value of the people around him. Says Ben, “People are the best resources, from entrepreneur friends of mine to networking with people that have been there before. I lean on the advice of people that are smarter than me. The people you work with become your family, [and] you become the company.”

For Ben, the most challenging aspect of starting a business was the personal sacrifice. “Being your own boss gives you complete ownership of your own time, but if you’re going to succeed, you’re going to be working 100-hour weeks. At the beginning, the CEO’s job is to set the vision and survive at all costs. But at some point, you’re no longer a startup and your responsibility grows beyond vision and direction to increasing shareholder value. It makes you look at everything through a different lens.”

From his perspective, Chaotic Moon’s growth looks good. “We’re getting larger clients and bigger engagements and starting to roll out some of our own products and hardware. The ultimate goal is world domination. Our software is in phones, cars, tractors, Xboxes, hotels, drones, shopping carts – you name it. We’re already to the point that when you order a pizza from your car on the way home from a movie, you’ve used all Chaotic Moon software.”

All of the interconnectedness that they’re building allows Ben to see new opportunities for his company and clients. “Chaotic Moon is always looking to hack existing hardware to find new uses, bring two of our clients together to make something they couldn’t have done on their own, and we’re always mentoring and re-invest in the startup community.”

For the startup community, Ben’s advice is to be as aggressive as Chaotic Moon’s slogan. “My absolute biggest piece of advice is you have to take it. No one is going to give you anything, your partners aren’t going to bring you ideas and your investors aren’t going to bring you deals. So go out and take it, and only hire other people that will go out there and take it too.”

Tim Edwards was a student at Brigham Young University when he helped start FirstRev, which eventually led to the founding of EBQuickstart, the genesis of NSR Holdings, Inc (“No Small Reputation”). EBQuickstart grew out of his Capstone project to become a leader in Outsourced Sales Services and is one of five Pardot Preferred Partners.

Before that, Tim attended 3 different colleges while working towards a degree. First, he followed a basketball dream. Then, Tim says, “I looked for cost effective education since I was paying my own way. BYU offered a scholarship and provided a more cost effective degree than I could get from UT, so I went there.” After the first company began to gain traction he dropped out to focus on the company and never finished his degree.

Tim used the success of EBQuickstart to fund NSR Holdings, Inc . Tim says, “We are in essence a small image of Berkshire Hathaway. However, expanding a group of companies or portfolio of organizations that are not necessarily linked to each other takes an ability in multi-tasking and leader development. I can’t fully manage each company and creating managers who understand and implement the vision of their perspective business unit is essential to the success of each business unit.”

Since its founding, NSR has started or acquired two additional companies and a non-profit. Silver Rock is a project management and professional services company. Limelight Technologies builds and sells electroluminescent lighting products for homes and businesses. And Maverick’s Miracle Babies helps families afford infertility treatments via grants.

Tim says he has always enjoyed building businesses and managing operations and scope. “By establishing a holding company, I am able to scratch the entrepreneur itch without having to give up the prior company I created or acquired. “

What makes NSR unique is it’s focus on meritocracy and how it grows managers and leaders from within its organizations. Tim explains, “Our ability to develop leaders has created an environment where we promote 90% of our management from within.”

NSR businesses conduct 101 courses in their businesses, taught by the business leaders. Employees that are looking to grow their careers are encouraged to explore the upward or outward mobility that a meritocracy-driven holding company can provide. Says Tim, “Our training programs are deep and very hands on and we hold ourselves accountable to make sure the internal employees are given every chance to understand expectations and culture in order to earn consideration for available positions. “

Growing up in Austin, Tim sees the culture and environment of Austin as being core to his businesses’ success. Because he hires from within, almost all of his new employees are entry level. The large number of universities in town provide him a fresh batch of recruits every year. And although he hires entry level employees, it’s not the GPA or transcript that he looks for as much as it is the ability to set a goal and accomplish it.

“It’s just like our customer’s do with us” explains Tim. “We then work to create an environment where employees receive what they earn. We work hard, set clear expectations, provide thorough training, and allow leaders to rise to the top.” This has enabled Tim to “Create mid-level management who understand the vision and implement it while maintaining the culture that was established within the smaller company.” NSR’s portfolio of companies currently have about 75 employees and are looking to add another 25 in the next twelve months.

The desire and ability to promote from within and cross pollinate between businesses makes NSR stronger than the individual companies would be alone. Each business unit can approach different industries and drive different value propositions. Then, as an investment company, NSR can benefit from great ideas that have not taken off and are caught in stagnant or failing companies. Says Tim, “We acquire organizations and embed our scope, vision, and finances into their growth and can put their great idea into a better, more fruitful situation.”

Tim believes that this focus on internal employee growth and success is one of the main ways that NSR sets itself apart from its competition. Tim says that “Existing management and personnel can provide great insight into your organization and how to drive it forward. Outside advice is always appreciated, but those who are in it with you will be more likely to assess the situation and then help to sustain the solution.”

Like most fast-growing companies, cash flow is one of the most important factors and limiters to NSR’s growth. Tim says, “We worked out of an apartment and then a broken down office building while we organically created momentum. We took the bootstrapping route but it is tough.”

While continuing to bootstrap, NSR is now at a place where it can fund its own growth. Tim says, “We have 3 major business units and are working to keep each on pace for stable, long term growth. We will also look for growth by adding additional business units and making further investments in private and public companies. “

Tim recognizes the struggles that entrepreneurs face. “If I had to do it all over again” says Tim, “I would have gone slower at certain times. But there is nothing harder or more rewarding in the business world than starting your own businesses. You will go through the lowest lows and the highest highs. If you aren’t ready for hurt, you shouldn’t start a company. “

I’m originally from Morton, Texas, a small town just west of Lubbock. It’s a dry cotton farming part of the state. You can learn a lot about life in a dry land farming community.

I also spent time in Houston, which was about as different from small town life as you could get. Growing up in those very different places gave me the opportunity to interact with people across a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences.

What university did you go to?

I was in Lubbock at Texas tech for two semesters, but quickly ended up in the Army. This was back in the 1990’s, I spent a year in South Korea, and six months in Guantanamo Bay. I had several outstanding leaders in the army, that taught me a great deal about leadership and teamwork. After the Army, I attended the University of Houston.

Where did you work before your current company?

I joined a startup tech firm in San Francisco. I managed a database team there. It was my first management position, and it allowed me to see a lot of business strategies that worked, but also a lot that didn’t.

How did you start Kinnser Software?

After San Francisco, I returned to Houston where I found a group of home health care companies that were looking for software to help them operate more efficiently. This was in 2003. They couldn’t find anything on the market, so they contracted with me to develop something. I set up an office in a home health agency and developed software to solve their problems. I worked very closely with them. I kept the software really lean and easy to use. In home health care, the user is a 50-year-old nurse and not someone who is necessarily savvy with the latest technology tools.

The software met a real need and became the foundation of what is now, ten years later, the leading software for the home health industry–Kinnser Agency Manager™.

What does Kinnser Software do?

Kinnser Software delivers a web-based electronic health record (EHR) solution to home health agencies, therapy companies, and hospices. Our software schedules clinicians, holds medical records, records the visits, generates claims for reimbursements, generates bills and financial reports, and allows HIPAA-compliant messaging between the professionals providing care to patients. The fact that the software is web-based means the information is secure, yet available to the mobile workforce that makes home care possible.

What is it for?

Kinnser Software is for home health agencies, therapy companies, and hospices of any size.

Why did you call it Kinnser?

“Kinnser” was a name that was short, simple, and unique.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up?

I’d say hiring has been the toughest part. I’ve never believed in throwing people at problems. At Kinnser, we don’t hire until there’s an undeniable need. We’ve made excellent and careful hiring decisions over the years, but it’s been a very deliberate process and highly challenging.

What is the next step for you and your business?

We took on private equity about 2 years ago. I found I became more aggressive in running the business once I had that capital behind me. Consequently, we’re growing quickly, expanding our reach, and gaining increasing larger customers–which brings new challenges.

Because Kinnser operates as a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, it is absolutely essential that we stay focused on customer success. We have to earn our customers’ business every year. Kinnser’s most important next step is always to keep satisfying our customers.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

My recommendation is to start out depending on your customers for revenue, not investors. There’s a saying, “revenue solves all problems” which I believe is really true. Revenue means you are doing something right. It means customers want what you’re offering. I believe Kinnser took on investment capital at the right time. I see some companies taking on the wrong capital, at the wrong time. Your goal shouldn’t be to take on capital as soon as possible, but to build a business that customers need.

What resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?

Over the years, I’ve learned to fire myself from roles when there was someone available who could do a better job.

Working with our private equity partners–Insight Venture Partners–has been like that. They work with a lot of companies and have seen a lot of strategic strategies succeed and fail. They know what works and what doesn’t. Their input has been very helpful.

The United States has over 330 million wireless subscriber connections, or more than one per person. Our “always-on” society sets the expectation of being able to connect with who you want, when you want. Yet, of the 1 trillion mobile calls place each year, billions go unintentionally missed. It is simply not practical to carry your phone in your hand at all times, yet Trellie’s own market research reveals there are certain people in your life who you would ALWAYS take a call from. For example, 80% of respondents would ALWAYS take a call from their spouse and 60% would ALWAYS take a call from their mom. Add in additional ways that people are communicating with each other (text, email, social, etc.) and it can become overwhelming. People still want to receive those important communications, so why are they still missing billions of calls and other important communications each year?According to Mary Meeker’s (Kleiner Perkins) 2013 Internet Trends Report, the average user checks their phone 150 times per day, indicating missing communications is not for a lack of trying to stay connected. The missed communications are a direct result of the impracticality associated with having a mobile phone in your hand at all times so you are constantly aware of communications. Secondarily, even if a user is aware of an incoming call, they do not know its level of importance. For example, is my daughter just calling to say hi or is she in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital?

How did you come up with this idea?

Trellie was conceived by the founders in 2012 over lunch while exchanging stories about being unable to reliably reach their wives when calling their mobile phones. The previous day, both had time-sensitive information which they were not able to communicate. While these missed calls had minor implications for the founders in this particular instance, they immediately envisioned more dire circumstances where a “miss” might have major consequences. After all, if they couldn’t get through, then neither could the hospital, babysitter or school. With growing families at home and input from others experiencing the same challenges, Trellie Inc. was born.

Did you seek investment when you started the company or bootstrap?

The cofounders initially funded the business with $60k in June 2012 and then closed a $500k friend/family convertible debt round January 2013. This included 8 investors who were already in our personal network and one new angel. In August 2013, the company closed an additional $300k from existing investors and one new angel.

The concept for the company came about in early 2012. The cofounders worked nights and weekends creating the business plan and executing market research to validate the concept. After feeling confident in the concept, Claude quit his job in June 2012 and Jason quit his job in September 2012 to put all effort into building their first product. First customers were achieved during a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in January 2013. These early adopters helped provide insights that were applicable to our product development.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting your business?

The most difficult part was filtering all of the advice we got from very smart people…sometimes offering exact opposite suggestions.

What is the next step for Trellie?

The next step is completing Product #2 development in time for a Summer 2014 launch. In order to do so, we must raise $450k.

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

Take all of the advice you can get but trust your gut as you have most likely thought about the problem you are trying to solve more than anyone providing advice.

]]>Jason Myershttp://texasenetworks.com/?p=387722016-10-11T22:53:37Z2013-12-12T23:19:26ZWhat does your company do?

I was researching semantic web technology at Stanford and wanted to implement a better search engine. One cannot compete against Google so I had to take a different approach. One way to get the project off the ground is to have other people pay to solve the problem so we came up with a business model of selling sponsored attributes. What we found is that customers will pay to find the order in which their customers use search terms to find a product. We then incorporated that process into a faceted search navigation tool for ecommerce sites.

I fell in love with the vision of improving digital discovery while conducting research into semantic search systems at Stanford. While there, I realized that the best way to improve search was not solely through a better algorithm but rather better data and user experience. During my time at Bazaarvoice where I was a product manager for big data and analytics initiatives, I saw just how valuable data can be in transforming the lives of not just consumers but also the teams that develop and maintain the ecommerce sites that they use. As I got to know the methods and operations of these kinds of ecommerce teams, I noticed just how much pain there was around managing a large site’s navigation – and in fact, I noticed more importantly that while many of the teams were limited by technology, they were in fact much more inhibited by their access to well-formed, structured data that matched how their customers thought. Once I had saved up enough money to not starve for 10 months, I left BV to set out in creating the worlds most powerful product decision engine – backed by relevant, adaptable data.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up?

Building an advisory board that knows the enterprise space and how to sell into it. We found some of the best in this space – Brett Hurt, Sam Decker, and Russ Somers – and invited them to join our board.

Also, finding technical developers in the semantic search space is a key issue. We need a high level of scalability to make our program work.

Aside from that, learning how to strike a balance between specific client needs versus industry pain points is one of the most difficult tasks for any enterprise software company – particularly one where the existing infrastructure is just so fundamentally broken. We’ve found that nearly every discussion with clients about the pain of managing and optimizing site navigation leads to 10 new ideas for product capabilities and roadmap initiatives. Keeping that list focused and aligned with the highest priority initiatives is critical to success.

What is your company’s mission?

We’re building a marketing technology company to help people make better decisions.

What need does it fulfill?

We help customers find what they are looking for even when they don’t know exactly what they are seeking. We improve the Ecommerce user experience through improved search and navigation by letting customers use their own words and descriptions that matter most in making their decision. Through this experience we can build better taxonomies and help our customers put the right attributes into their Ecommerce system.

What are your core three values?

Humility, passion, innovation, hustle, and laughter. We have a photo of a sloth in an astronaut suit which we call the slothstranaut. If you can see the humor in that then you’re a potential candidate to work with us.

Hustle is also so core to how we view our day to day lives. We try to encourage our employees to stretch themselves daily and do the best work of their careers.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs today?

Seek mentorship and work hard to find people who can advise you.

What resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?

The best resource in book form I found is Peter Drucker’s “The Practice of Management“ Drucker emphasizes the importance of a paying customer. So many companies today are building businesses without a customer in the process. It’s important that someone pay for what you are offering.

]]>Jason Myershttp://texasenetworks.com/?p=386792016-10-11T22:53:38Z2013-11-15T13:01:40ZArise is the #8 fastest growing company in Austin in 2013. Arise partners with doctors to provide better service to patients. Jared Leger is the CEO of Arise and gave more details about the company in this interview.

How did you start the company?

Dr. Wills and I started Arise in 2009 to run healthcare centers. We run joint ventures with doctors and surgeons to provide localized healthcare. They see it as an extension of their practice. We take care of the back office work.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up?

Building credibility to do bigger projects. Going up against large competitors was daunting. We were also working with very little capital. The key was establishing a track record. It was a scary time. We kept asking ourselves if we were going to make it.

What is your growth strategy?

We follow the needs of the Texas market. We found a need for outpatient surgical care centers that are located closer to the patient’s home. Also, the Texas markets are growing, especially in Central Texas. There’s also a growing niche called “compounding pharmacy” which makes custom medicines for patients. We plan to pursue that avenue as well.

What is your company’s mission?

To make the facilities patient centric. We can support our doctor partners by overseeing their facilities and helping them navigate the direction of business practices in medicine.

What is the next step for your company?

We want to grow the Arise Austin Medical Center brand through offsite campuses—which puts the facility closer to the patient. We also recently launched Arise Capital, which handles the real estate component of our facilities – and we’ll be adding new sites.

What are your core three values?

Be Honest

Be Responsible

Be Wise

How does healthcare reform impact your company?

It helps it and hurts it. We must pay more for health insurance for the 320 employees in our company. It’s not clear what impact it will have on our facilities because the proposed performance metrics aren’t finalized yet. Of course, this makes potential investors sit on the sidelines until the situation becomes clear.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs today?

Most entrepreneurs don’t forecast their profit/loss to determine their operational metrics. We recommend business planning around financial metrics and then measure budget to actual.

What resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?

One of our best resources has been sound legal counsel. Our industry is highly regulated so finding someone with industry-specific experience has been a must. Also the Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Hospital Association have been great resources for us as well.

KELL helps nonprofits use the technology from salesforce.com to improve their operational performance. So many non-profits are still using spreadsheets and old database technology to manage their contacts, relationships, donations and program functions. Increasingly, the technology choices we make, either as individuals, business or nonprofit organizations greatly affects our efficiency. More than any other type of business, nonprofits must operate efficiently and this is what motivates our team and services. We have a passion for nonprofits and the Salesforce.com technology, so it is a natural fit for our services to focus on helping these organizations improve their use of technology. We’ve been doing this for 4+ years, have helped more than 650 clients and have delivered more than 50,000 of hours of our services and it’s still a lot of fun.

What is your user base?
We have over 650 clients.

How did you start the company?
Kevin Burpo and I had been working with nonprofit and higher education clients for more than 8 years during our tenures at Convio and PeopleAdmin together. We saw a need in the marketplace to help nonprofit organizations maximize their use of technology and specifically Salesforce.com. The Salesforce.com Foundation has been a great partner and has really helped us grow our business with client referrals.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up?
Since there was such a strong need in the marketplace, we had challenges in being able to hire as quickly as we could sell.

How did you fund it?
We bootstrapped it all the way.

What is your company’s mission?
Our mission is to utilize technology to help non-profits meet their mission more effectively.

What need does it fulfill?
For smaller non-profits we help them build their donor base. For medium and large size firms we move them to Salesforce from a legacy database.

What are your core three values?
Integrity, Excellence, Compassion

What is the next step for your company?
Our number one limitation is hiring enough good people. We need to hire individuals who understand Salesforce, have led projects in the past and preferably have nonprofit experience to help service our growing number clients. The nonprofit market continues to rapidly adopt Salesforce and there is plenty of business for KELL to develop, we simply need good people to help us service the opportunity.

In addition, we’re getting better and better at delivering a higher quality solution to our clients more efficiently. In other words, we’ve begun developing what we call SmartPacks, that combine code with expert services to solve common discreet needs of our clients. While KELL remains a professional service company at the core, we’re developing apps based on custom solutions we’ve built numerous times and packaging these with consulting to deliver a “battle tested” solution without having to start from scratch each time. We expect this approach to deliver a winning solution for KELL and most importantly, our clients.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs today?
It’s important to build the right type of culture by hiring the right people, who care about your clients and in our case the client’s missions.

What resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?
The Salesforce community and Salesforce.com Foundation is quite strong and very helpful. Our clients have been very loyal and have helped us grow tremendously through word of mouth referrals.

What does “Kell” stand for?
It’s a combination of the first letter of the founders’ children’s’ names

To create a highly secure, easy to use and reliable suite that helps doctors organize and communicate while sharing important information to doctors within or outside of their medical group. SimpleRounds® is a highly secure service that saves doctors and hospitals time and money. Our software works on multiple platforms- from smartphones or tablets at the bedside to a desktop at the office. SimpleRounds helps doctors organize and share information, make better decisions and reduce billing mistakes and readmissions.

How did you come up with this idea?

We saw physicians trying to coordinate with other doctors as they attempted to retain a lot of information on paper cards or slips of paper. It proved to be impossible! Doctors also let many dollars slip thru their fingers as they could not recall all the billing codes for a procedure or get too busy after seeing a patient. We also witnessed the amount of time spent in transferring patients to one another at Sign Out and developed SimpleRounds®

How long have you been in operations?

We began the company in November 2012. To date we organized a Texas “C” corporation, funded ourselves from founder resources and have the software suite in “beta” testing at 3 separate sites.

Did you seek investment when you started the company?

As a team we consciously decided not to seek other peoples’ money as we began. We wanted to prove the concept to ourselves initially. We invested our own funds and our time!

Thereafter we slapped the founders’ team’s pockets- to the tune of $175K hard money and with another in-kind team contribution of $650K+. We have recently agreed to a loan for $100K backed by founders.

Talk about how you’ve bootstrapped your startup.

We have been bootstrapping our company since the start, but are conscious that being a medically related service we should not save money to sacrifice quality. While we were looking to outsource some of our development and were unconvinced with options we found in Asia we came across a mobile development company that does “nearshoring” and specializes in the platform we are using to build our application. Their development center is based in Guadalajara, Mexico. While they are not as inexpensive as some firms in Asia they are probably the best company that can do what we need. Current personnel are not being paid. Nevertheless, we have secured a line of credit from founders that will allow us to have our application completely developed and keep us operating for the next 8 months.

What are your revenue projections?

As of October 2013 we are in startup mode and have no revenues as yet. As we begin sales we project revenues of $5-10K per month for the first six months after beginning sales operations. Our initial focus will be on medical groups, hospitals and answering services. This revenue will help us start breaking even while we start targeting large medical groups that can grow to bring us revenues of $70,000-$90,000 per month.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting your business?

As a startup we began with a blank page- no business plan and a single medical doctor with a big idea. Manuel Martinez, MD realized he needed to engage a founder group with multiple skill sets. We have a top software (Cristian Partica) with experience and interest in the mobile app space, an internet businessman (Rico Garrett) with 16 years of experience and two executives with proven entrepreneurial backgrounds (Ruben Zamorano and Jose Bravo) with both training and executive know-how. We added a marketing and sales professional (Philip Trent) and feel that our beta sites can only help us grow our business.

What is the next step for you and your business?

We need to begin SimpleRounds sales to a mid-sized medical multispecialty group and to a hospital corporation. We will want to begin sales with another city’s physician answering service. To this end we want to convert to sell Simple Rounds to our multi-specialty medical group and hospital beta test sites.

We must be sure that SimpleRounds works well regardless of users having iOS or Android smartphones. The software suite must be reliable regardless of platform. We must assure that the tablets operate well- doctors use these in the hospital setting, as do nurses and others. Our biggest threshold seeks must assure seamless operation for the doctor, the office staff or the answering service operator.

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

“Skin in the game” is a must, in our view. As opposed to using other people’s money” we think that founders must demonstrate that we believe in our company and have proven this by investing well over $750K. Thus, the investor is well-served by knowing that we have 1) not taken salaries, 2) funded the project and 3) proven the concept in beta site testing.

What Texas-based resources have you found to be the most helpful?

Our beta users to date are a 35-doctor multi-specialty physician group and San Antonio’s largest physician answering service. Next is the Plano, Texas based Community Hospital Corporation whose hospitals promise to be ideal “beta” test sites. As of this date we are planning to work in Yoakum and Beaumont, Texas and in Artesia New Mexico. We have not been approached by any funding organization other than the Texas Entrepreneurs Network.